Protecting Your Bucket

Both loader and excavator buckets are designed to scoop materials and deposit them elsewhere. The scooping action causes abrasive wear particularly on the sides of the buckets.

There are several different methods commonly used to protect the bucket sides from wear.

Among the most common is applying hardfacing in a checkerboard pattern. This method takes many labor hours to cover the affected surfaces.

The concept here is the clay or sticky material you are digging will stick to the bucket surface inside the checkerboard square formed by hardfacing beads.

In theory, the material you are digging clings to the bucket between the hardfacing beads. This would have the material stuck on the bucket, wearing against the material to be removed. You are hoping it wouldn’t wear on the steel.

Many people see this pattern on other equipment and play follow-the-leader, with their equipment. That pattern only works for sticky materials. If you are in hard rock, nothing will stick to the bucket or protect the steel.

Most People Don’t Realize The Additional Stress This Adds To The Steel

When you weld two pieces of steel together that are not clamped tightly into place, the unrestrained steel will lift as the weld shrinks when it cools. Every welder has seen this many times.

One protection method to reduce welding stresses, is to use hardfacing dots rather than stringer beads. Usually these are applied in penny and dime sizes. The dots add far less stress to the base metal than the stringer weld beads.

Another method of protection is applying small ‘Wear Squares’ made from wear resistant steel such as JADCO QT-PLUS ^® or CHROMEWELD ^™ 600. These smaller sized squares can be applied quickly and cover more area than stringer beads or dots.

The wear squares can be cut in any size for your needs, but are most often used in 4” squares with a center plug weld hole to assist in retaining the wear plate.

he hardfacing checkerboard pattern requires far more labor to apply than wear bars. You can see it is also less effective at retaining material. Notice how the vertical wear bars have better retained the sticky sand between the vertical uprights, than the checkerboard.

Wear bars can be any size and shape you choose for your specific application. You can cut QT Plus ® with a torch or plasma. Cutting Chromeweld ™ 600 however, requires plasma. Oxy-fuel torches will not cut Chrome Carbide Overlay (CCO) plate.

In the photo above you can see a QT-PLUS ® replacement excavator bucket bottom. Note how the edges extend out 1” from the vertical side plates. This extra lip allows for welding on both sides of the vertical steel, giving greater strength and additional wear protection. The bucket has an additional full side plate to provide longer life, which is used in building demolition, where it encounters metal-on-metal wear, and high stress abrasion.

If your bucket bottom is flush with the side plate, the weld joint is exposed to constant abrasion. Since the weld joint is not as hard as the QT-PLUS ^® wear resistant steel, the weld joint quickly wears away from the abrasion. The structural integrity is greatly reduced.

JADCO’s QT-PLUS ^® delivers greater performance IN YOUR MOST CHALLENGING WEAR APPLICATIONS than the various AR400 steel plates you have used previously.

Being able to create wear resistant steel having the same hardness through the entire thickness of the steel, demands you accurately control the alloying chemistry with precise heat treating.

Doesn’t Every Steel Company Make Their Wear Plate Last As Long As JADCO QT PLUS ^®?

The quick answer is No; although the attention to detail required at the steel mill in Pennsylvania is available to anyone. Yet most wear plate distributors choose to reduce the proper quantities and percentages of these essential alloying elements, to get a lower selling price.

When you cut back on these critical alloys, wear life drops and it is always the customer who suffers.

For over the last 43+ years JADCO has focused exclusively on delivering consistent, longer life for our customers.

Now you understand why we are able to deliver better results to our customers. We think differently by strictly focusing on improving your current results.

At JADCO, we think differently by strictly focusing on your results. Now you can understand why JADCO delivers better performance results for our customers.

Allow us to help you today by calling 724.452.5252, or email info@jadcomfg.com.
We will schedule a meeting with one of our local wear plate specialists at a time that best fits your schedule.

Remember, the only thing you have to lose by not working with JADCO, are your profits.